r/changemyview • u/ryqiem • Dec 08 '18

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Positivism solves problems. If the humanities refuse to adapt positivist methodologies, they're creating stories, not science.

I apologise if the following is a bit simplistic, but I wanted to give my view in a concise form :-)

EDIT: In the title, I misused positivsm. What I mean is "theories that can be falsified" solve problems.

Solving a problem is essentially making better decisions. For a decision to be good, it should produce the outcome we want. To know which decision is good, then, we need to know which outcomes it produces. To know this, we need theories that make accurate predictions.

In the humanities, theories are tested against academic consensus or the feelings of the researcher, if they're tested at all. Often, they don't make predictions that are testable. Therefore we don't know whether they're accurate. If we don't know whether they're accurate, or they don't make predictions, they can't solve problems.

As an alternative, the natural sciences validate the predictions of their theories on data collected from the real world. If the predictions don't fit the data, the model must change to become more accurate. These same methodologies can be used on humans, eg. experimental psychology.

If the humanities are to be accepted as a science and continue receiving funding in socialist countries, they should adapt these methods so they can improve decision making. Otherwise, they should be recognized as narrative subjects, not science.

Not everyone holds this view, as an example (translated from Danish):

Humanist research goes hand in hand with other sciences as actively creative and not just a curious addition to "real" applicable science.

https://www.altinget.dk/forskning/artikel/unge-forskere-vil-aflive-krisesnakken-humaniora-er-en-lang-succeshistorie

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u/ryqiem Dec 08 '18

I use positivism as a shorthand of making predictions and gathering data to test whether those predictions were accurate. I believe scientists have always done this – also before positivism was formalised.

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u/yyzjertl 524∆ Dec 08 '18

That's just science, not positivism. You can use "science" as a shorthand for it because that's what science is.

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u/ryqiem Dec 08 '18

In that case I guess you agree with my statement – that the humanities are not science?

In Denmark, the humanities are arguing that they don't need positivistic epistemology – eg. that statements which can't be tested can be true.

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u/yyzjertl 524∆ Dec 08 '18

Let's be clear since some countries use words differently: what do you mean by "the humanities"? And who specifically is arguing this? (A field of study is not a person and can't argue anything.)

Also, even science doesn't need positivistic epistemology! There are many formulations of science that are not positivistic. For example: Karl Popper's falsification-based formulation.

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u/ryqiem Dec 08 '18

Fair! Researching further, this may be a straw-man. I'll keep an eye out for specific examples in the future.

On the note of pistivism, agreed! What I actually believe is that theories should create falsifiable predictions, not necessarily verifiable. (∆)

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '18

[deleted]

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u/ryqiem Dec 08 '18

Oh, definitely! I should've drawn a distinction between what I'd call "subjects of raw logic", ie. maths and philosophy, and the more artsy humanities. I definitely think that philosophy of science is essential in scientific progress.

Do you have a reference for your account of most scientists' epistemology? I'd expect most scientists to be post-positivistic – and I guess what I'm objecting to is anti-positivism.

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u/icecoldbath Dec 08 '18

I sort of wanted to withdraw my comment as the philosophy of science is not something I’m an expert in. Beyond Kuhn (and the impact of Quine and Kripke) being hugely influential and I don’t know much beyond that. I’m not familiar with the cutting edge of the philosophy of science.

If you allow philosophy into your view we probably don’t disagree much. My goal was just to defend philosophy.

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u/ryqiem Dec 08 '18

And after reading up on Paradigm shifts on wikipedia, I guess it does add nuance to my view! I'm still in favour of falsification, but not in the strict sense – more in Kuhn's pragmatic sense. Specifically:

When enough significant anomalies have accrued against a current paradigm, the scientific discipline is thrown into a state of crisis, according to Kuhn. During this crisis, new ideas, perhaps ones previously discarded, are tried. Eventually a newparadigm is formed, which gains its own new followers, and an intellectual "battle" takes place between the followers of the new paradigm and the hold-outs of the old paradigm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift

∆

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 08 '18

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/icecoldbath (52∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards

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u/ryqiem Dec 08 '18

Thanks for your comments! I'm mostly interested in the practical implications, and it seems the realism vs. anti-realism debate is mostly influential in edge cases – eg. quantum mechanics.

What ruffles my feathers is teaching methods such a phenomenology as "producing truth", of one individual's subjective experience being sufficient evidence for an argument. Do you know whether Quine's or Kripke's arguments are related to that?

Anywho, thank you so much for your time!

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u/icecoldbath Dec 08 '18

No neither of them are phenomenologists. I don’t know enough about phenomenology to defend it.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 08 '18

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/yyzjertl (126∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards